 We continue to make progress on the building. Our plan is to pour the front third of the second floor in about a week, and from that point, it will be a footrace to try to have the roof on and be moved in by September 1st, although there will still be more work to do.
Hurricane Season Coming . . .
September and October are when the hurricane season begins in earnest here. Before that time, hurricanes generally curve northward, but in late summer, the tend to go more westward towards our location. The locals tell me that the hurricanes will sit out in the bay building up and then usually come ashore at about eight o'clock at night.
Our foreman Javier told me that during the great hurricane of 1988 that destroyed the city, he spent the entire night with a friend sitting up  against a well as the wind howled around well in excess of 100 mph. He was 11 years old at the time and could not run to the shelter because he had stepped on a nail that had gone through his foot.
Ministry Report . . .
We continue to have good things to report in terms of ministry. Our discipleship groups have become established. One group that was struggling has gained strength, thanks to Clayton who worked hard to get it moving again.
A young college student came to our home a couple of weeks ago because he had a Mac computer and someone had messed it up by trying to put XP on it. We worked for about three hours getting it reformatted, using my disks and we also shared our dinner with him. We also invited him to get involved in our discipleship groups.
The other day, he came up to Tim on the streetand told him that he wanted to become a part of a discipleship group. He, lik e so many others, is interested in God, but does not go to church anywhere.
We had another pizza and dominoes night at the new house for the guys. We set up some extra lights and used our new outdoor tables and chairs and it all worked quite well.
Family News . . .
Hopefully, our younger son Jason will be coming to see us around that time. He will be graduating from his advanced training on August 21st, and will deploy to Germany on October 5th.
Jonathan is moving today, driving across country to Clearwater, Florida. He wants to live near a coast and he can do all his web work from his home.
House Progress . . .
 This week we hope to pour the first floor in the front part of the building and form up stairway and the second floor. We already poured the second floor in the main part of the building.
Next week, we hope to pour the second floor in the front part of the building and begin to build up all the walls so that we can start the rafters on the roof as soon as the walls are all up.
We are once again in a phase were we are buying a lot of materials. We have 18 meters of sand and stone arriving Monday and we have to turn around and locate about 2000 more blocks.
Two things really make it challenging. First, we have to buy our sand and blocks in Rama and pay to transport them all to Bluefields. The sand and blocks here in Bluefields have a lot of salt in them which corrodes the steel reinforcing rods. Second, the prices on materials have doubled in the past year (and then some).
The good news is that this building will be here for over a hundred years, if the Lord tarries, and will serve a lot more people than just ourselves. Concrete construction is time-consuming and expensive, but very durable and low maintenance.
Thank you again for all your prayers and support.
God bless you,
Tim and Kim |
